Category Archives: Pop and rock

Mary Wilson: the Supremes’ tenacious star who refused to accept defeat

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The co-founder of the Motown group was overshadowed by Diana Ross but won her battle to protect the group’s integrity

• Mary Wilson: Supremes co-founder dies age 76

In November 1969, Diana Ross announced her departure from the Supremes. It was not an entirely unexpected turn of events for anyone who knew about the internal workings of Motown Records. From the moment in 1963 when label boss Berry Gordy began taking an interest in the trio – whose seven singles to date had met with such commercial indifference they’d become known around Hitsville USA as the No-Hit Supremes – it was obvious who he thought the group’s star was. First Ross became the de facto lead singer on all their singles, with her fellow members Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard relegated to occasional leads on album tracks or on stage.

It was clearly unfair – Ballard and Wilson were fine singers, the latter’s soft-toned version of Come and Get These Memories from The Supremes A’ Go-Go (1966) is delightful – but you couldn’t argue with the commercial results: they had five No 1 singles in 12 months. In 1967, the band’s name was changed to Diana Ross and the Supremes, precipitating the departure of the increasingly troubled Ballard. From that point on, the Supremes were a Diana Ross solo vehicle in all but name: subsequent singles, including Love Child and I’m Living in Shame, featured Ross backed by session singers.

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Elton John: Brexit negotiators ‘screwed up’ deal for British musicians

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Singer calls for return to negotiation as touring artists face red tape and new costs, with Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood adding fresh criticism of UK government

Elton John: I learned by touring Europe in the 60s. Young artists need the same chance

Elton John has said that the UK’s Brexit negotiators “screwed up” a deal for British musicians and the broader music industry, and is calling for the government to re-enter negotiations.

Writing in the Guardian, John said: “Either the Brexit negotiators didn’t care about musicians, or didn’t think about them, or weren’t sufficiently prepared. They screwed up. It’s ultimately down to the British government to sort it out: they need to go back and renegotiate.

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Massive Attack: ‘You resurrect ghosts when you bring something back from the past’

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Robert Del Naja, of the Bristol pioneers, talks about the power and danger of nostalgia as well as his work collaborating with Adam Curtis

Musicians have been faced with an impossible puzzle since March 2020: with gigs and festivals mothballed for the foreseeable future, how to maintain a profile? For Massive Attack, a solution was probably less of a reach than for many artists. After all, for the Bristolian pioneers, sound and vision have been interacting in unconventional ways for decades.

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From Massive Attack to Miley Cyrus: Adam Curtis’s favourite cover versions

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Radical rewirings and weird new realms – reinterpretations of old classics can give us hope for the future, says the film-maker

Much of modern culture has become like an ageing ghost that constantly haunts us and refuses to allow us to move on into the future. It is extraordinary that we now still listen to music from bands in the 1950s and 1960s, like the Beatles. It is the equivalent of people in the 1960s still dancing to music from the 1890s. One of the most powerful symbols of this frozen culture is the cover version – a symptom of a static world where people constantly rework the material of the past. Just as they do in sampling, and with people constantly reusing and re-editing archive film from the past. But every now and then, people do covers of songs that break out to create something genuinely new. They show that invention is still possible – and that gives you hope we might move on from this static moment in time.

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Carly Simon’s 20 greatest tracks – ranked!

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As her debut album turns 50, we select the best work by a songwriter with a standout talent for finely drawn character studies

As an album, Hello Big Man was all over the place: reggae tracks recorded with Sly & Robbie, very early 80s world music experiments, slick MOR. Its one undisputed gem is It Happens Every Day, a careworn song about divorce, set to music that, beneath the 80s veneer, is like a lush late-50s ballad.

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Jazmine Sullivan: ‘I want to get to the root of why people do things’

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With 12 Grammy nominations since her 2008 debut, the US singer is already a genre leader – and her new EP seals her reputation with a cinematic portrait of six women commodified by their beauty

“Did you see the message from Issa?” Jazmine Sullivan asks me excitedly. For all the acclaim and Grammy recognition the R&B star has accrued over the past 12 years, she still reacts to starry praise with joy and disbelief. A hopeful tweet suggesting Insecure’s Issa Rae turn Sullivan’s latest EP into a short film elicited a positive response, and later in the week, the pattern repeats with Mary J Blige. “Wait … wtf?! I’m so happy man!” Sullivan tweeted after the soul legend signals her eagerness for a guest spot.

To onlookers, though, there was little surprise about the Philadelphia native – also picked to sing the national anthem at this year’s Super Bowl – being treated as one of the modern greats of R&B. When Sullivan arrived on the music scene in 2008, a much-touted 21-year-old protege of Missy Elliott, her USP was familiar in the genre: a vocal force of nature, honed in church, who drew on personal experience to deliver raw soul in the lineage of Blige (with whom she toured in 2010) and Keyshia Cole.

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Caroline Shaw: what next for the Pulitzer-winner who toured with Kanye? Opera – and Abba

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She has scored films, played with rappers, starred in a TV comedy, and performed for the dying. As the classical sensation releases three new works, she talks about the shock of playing arenas – and making the leap into opera

When Caroline Shaw became, at the age of 30, the youngest ever winner of the Pulitzer prize for music, she described herself as “a musician who wrote music” rather than as “a composer”. Partita, her winning score, is a joyful rollercoaster of a work, encompassing song, speech and virtually every vocal technique you can imagine. It was written for Shaw’s own group, Roomful of Teeth.

Eight years on, she’s still wary of defining herself too narrowly. “Composer, for some people, can mean something very particular,” she says, “and I’m trying to make sure I don’t get swallowed up into only one community.” Not that Shaw’s range shows any sign of narrowing: even a small sample of her work over the past few years throws up an array of names not often seen together: rappers Kanye West and Nas, soprano Renée Fleming, mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Parry, pianist Jonathan Biss. She has written film scores, sung on others, was the soloist in her own violin concerto, and even managed a cameo appearance as herself in Amazon Studio’s comedy drama Mozart in the Jungle. A year ago, Orange, a recording of her string quartets, won the Attacca Quartet a Grammy.

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Steps on how they made 5,6,7,8 – ‘We spent years trying not to perform it!’

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‘We had giant models made of our heads and got dancers to do it looking like us’

When I auditioned for Steps, we had to dance to a demo of 5,6,7,8. I remember thinking: “Thank God it’s a line dance.” I wasn’t a trained dancer and learning a proper routine would have probably scuppered my chances. But, after the management told me I’d made it, they said: “That’s going to be the first single.” I was like: “Oh no!” Line-dancing was something your mum did. I was 19 and wanted to go clubbing.

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Hilton Valentine, founding guitarist in the Animals, dies aged 77

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Singer Eric Burdon pays tribute to his fellow band member who ‘didn’t just play but lived’ their classic The House of the Rising Sun

Hilton Valentine, founding guitarist of the 60s group the Animals, has died aged 77.

Valentine’s death was confirmed by the band’s label ABKCO Music, who wrote in a statement on Twitter on Saturdy night: “Our deepest sympathies go out to Hilton Valentine’s family and friends on his passing this morning, at the age of 77.”

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Sophie: 10 of the greatest tracks by a genius of pop’s expressive power

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From productions for Charli XCX and Gaika to Sophie’s emotionally shattering solo works, we celebrate a truly singular artist who has died aged 34

This was the track that brought Sophie, the Scottish producer who has died aged 34 following an accidental fall, to wider attention, and how could it not. The opening sounds like an alert announcing a malfunction on a clown car assembly line, all sproings and sirens; these polished, corporate sonics would become a hallmark of the producer’s early work, revelling in the kitsch of the smartphone age. But unlike producers with similar satiric intentions like James Ferraro and Oneohtrix Point Never, you could dance to Sophie – and Bipp is so deliriously danceable.

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John Mayall’s teenage obsessions: ‘I lived in a tree house until I got married’

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As a huge box set of his work is released, the 87-year-old British bluesman reminisces about the thrill of discovering boogie-woogie piano and buying his first six-string in Japan

I lived in Acre Lane in Cheadle Hulme, Greater Manchester, and became a teenager on 29 November 1946. My parents had divorced and I lived with my mother and my grandfather. The house was a bit crowded, so I built a tree house in the garden, which basically became my room, my world. I built it with window frames and tarpaulin, but eventually it had a paraffin lamp, a bed and all my 78rpm records and such up there. It was about 25ft (7.6 metres) up an oak tree.

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Nancy Sinatra: ‘I’ll never forgive Trump voters. I hope the anger doesn’t kill me’

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She may be 80 and cut off by Covid, but she’s still ready to walk all over Donald Trump. As her greatest songs are reissued, she reflects on the sexual politics of the 60s, her friendship with Elvis and her hopes for peace in the US

Nancy Sinatra has one of the most famous surnames in America, but she has struggled to feel proudly American of late. It’s a couple of weeks away from the inauguration of Joe Biden, and the singer and film star is recalling Donald Trump’s preparations for his own inauguration in 2017: his first dance with his wife Melania would be to her father’s signature hit, My Way.

Sinatra was disgusted. Her father was no fan of Trump: according to Frank’s former manager, he told Trump to “go fuck himself” after the billionaire refused to meet Frank’s fee for a 1990 performance at an Atlantic City casino. Nancy, in a since deleted tweet to Trump, wrote: “Just remember the first line of the song.” My Way begins: “And now the end is near.”

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Kyrgyzstan ballads, Okinawan folk, Ugandan hymns … the album rewriting global music history

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Excavated Shellac rejects the western canon of pop, rock, jazz, classical and more to champion 78rpm gems from overlooked corners of the world – ‘an alternate universe’, according to the man behind it

Imagine an anthology of 20th-century music making that purposely ignored pop, rock, jazz, blues, country, classical and opera. Cue outrage, at least from English-speaking listeners. But away from the western canon that has come to dominate our conception of music-making, much of the world was busy creating swathes of very different, extremely beautiful music.

These overlooked styles are collated on a new 100-track compilation, An Alternate History of the World’s Music, and presumptuous as it may seem to announce that the best album of 2021 has already been released, to my mind it’s unlikely it will be topped. Helmed by Dust-to-Digital, the US label that has done a magnificent job with box sets chronicling overlooked areas of pre-second world war music, the digital release also features a 186-page ebook (complete with beautiful illustrations like the ones here), in which every tune gets discussed – the first is a South African miner’s protest against police brutality, the last a sultry Cuban dance tune whose singers sound like they might have been hitting the rum while recording. This sonic smorgasbord from across the globe lives up to the provocative title, with music from Afghanistan, Sudan, the former Yugoslavia, Uganda, Spain, Albania, Mongolia, Mexico and elsewhere. Ever wondered what the Crimean Tartar Orchestra might sound like? Well, their raucous, minor key, brass party music is fabulous.

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Someone you loved: how British pop could fade out in Europe

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Brexit rule changes that make it tricky to tour the EU will hold back UK artists from a fast-growing market

Limiting UK artists from working and touring in the EU post-Brexit will destroy the development of British music, say European industry experts, amid thriving competition from German rap, Spanish pop and more.

British artists now face the need for visas, work permits and equipment carnets when working in the EU, with emerging acts most likely to feel the impact of this costly and time-consuming admin. Over the last month, the UK and the EU have blamed each other for the inability to strike a deal to help the creative industries.

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Jon Bon Jovi on wealth, love and his ugly tussle with Trump: ‘It was seriously scarring’

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The big hair and bombast have long gone and the thoughtful singer-songwriter remains. He talks about politics, pain and meeting his wife of 40 years in history class

Jon Bon Jovi is singing Livin’ on a Prayer to me. No, this is not another crazy lockdown dream; it is actually happening.

“Tommy used to work on the docks …” he begins, strumming a guitar he produces out of nowhere, his still impressive bouffant (“I’m the only man in my field brave enough to let it go grey!”) bouncing in time to the music.

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Goat Girl: ‘We’re seen as harmless because we’re not men’

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With a member diagnosed with cancer and their politics deepened by BLM, the south London indie quartet have reassessed their priorities ahead of their excellent second album

South London quartet Goat Girl were deep into making their second album when it became clear that something was very wrong with their youngest member, guitarist-vocalist Ellie Rose Davies. At the end of 2019, she had had lumps on her neck for some time, which eventually spread to both armpits. It wasn’t until the 23-year-old’s “fourth or fifth” trip to the doctors that she was finally referred for a blood test, then a biopsy. “By which time the cancer was at stage four,” she says.

Davies had Hodgkin lymphoma, a cancer of the blood, and had to start a six-month course of chemotherapy immediately. “We were pretty worried because we knew it was getting worse,” says their bassist, Holly Mullineaux. They had been mixing the record with their producer, Dan Carey, when Davies got her results, “and we all just started crying”.

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Suzi Quatro: ‘At 70, I zip up the jumpsuit and feel like me’

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As a bass-playing, leather-clad lead singer, Quatro paved the way for a new generation of female rock stars in the 70s. She talks about fending off predatory men, carrying a knife for protection and why she still wears her famous jumpsuit

Suzi Quatro is remembering a “pivotal moment”. It was 1973, and the RAK Records boss, Mickie Most, asked her what she would like to wear to promote her wonderfully raucous single, Can the Can. “When I said leather, he said that was old-fashioned, but I stuck to my guns,” she recalls. Most relented, sketching a jumpsuit inspired by Jane Fonda’s character in the 1968 film Barbarella. “I went to the photo shoot in the jumpsuit and the photographer Gered Mankowitz said: ‘Suzi, give me that Suzi Quatro look.’ And all of a sudden, I had a look I didn’t know I had. I swear to God I didn’t know it was sexy until we got the photos back. He said: ‘Come and look.’ And I just went ‘Oh …’”

Can the Can rocketed to No 1, followed by smashes such as 48 Crash and Devil Gate Drive , numerous Top of the Pops appearances and 55m record sales to date.

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How we made: All Together Now by the Farm

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‘Pills were just starting to flow in Britain. We thought: “What will this sound like in a club with people off their heads?”’

The origins of All Together Now go back to 1981. Michael Foot had been the centre of tabloid outrage after wearing what the papers called a “donkey jacket” at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday. He later revealed that it was an £800 coat from Harrods which the Queen Mother had actually complimented him on, but the outrage made me angry. I thought the soldiers in the trenches would be more annoyed with the top brass that sent them to the front than, decades later, a Labour party leader’s attire. I’d trained as a history teacher and this incident inspired me to read more about the first world war. I chanced upon an article about the unofficial truce in 1914, when British and German troops came out of the trenches to play football with each other for Christmas. I wrote a song called No Man’s Land and we recorded it for a John Peel session. A couple of years later Paul McCartney released Pipes of Peace, with the same theme. I thought: “Bastard!”

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Phil Spector brought joy to pop music – and misery to so many lives

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Spector’s ‘Wall of Sound’ technique gave his artists’ music an infectious joie de vivre, but the man behind it was damaged, bitter and violent

Three years before his death in 2006, I interviewed Gene Pitney. Talk inevitably turned to Phil Spector. He had written Spector’s real breakthrough record – the Crystals’ 1962 No 1 He’s a Rebel – unequivocally one of the greatest singles in pop history, a perfect cocktail of soaring melody, echo-drenched production and Darlene Love’s exuberant vocal. A year before that, he’d sung Every Breath I Take, which, with its rumbling timpani, overload of backing vocals and dramatic orchestration, was one of the few early Spector productions to hint at the more-is-more Wall of Sound approach that would make him a legend. And, moreover, Spector was, as Pitney put it, “kind of a hot news item”: he was awaiting trial for murder.

Like a lot of people who knew Spector, Pitney seemed horrified yet oddly unsurprised at this turn of events, as if something like that was bound to happen sooner or later: the booze, the drugs, the evident instability, the obsession with guns and the history of violence towards women. Spector, he suggested, had been in trouble from the start. “I had dinner with him the first day he arrived in New York, and he said to me that his sister was in an asylum and she was the sane one in the family,” he recalled. “I thought, ‘Wow, where did that come from?’”

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